Celebrity cameos ruled my DVR remote last week. Two shows that I dumped by the wayside many moons ago reeled me in with their geek hiring sensibilities. I’ve finished both of them in my leisure time. (waits for friends’ snide remakrs to die down) and this is what I learned from each.
CRIMINAL MINDS “Penelope”
I was barely hanging on to the idea of CRIMINAL MINDS last year. Mandy Patinkin was the only draw for my continued loyalty. Kirsten Vangsness‘, Penelope, was a close second. But her appearances were so short she was barely more than a recurring character. By happy accident, I tripped across Nick Brendon’s Audblog which promoted his CM cameo. Glad that Brendon was getting a new chance at TV, I press record.
Imagine my surprise when Penelope got her turn to shine in the one episode I dared to watch this season. Imagine the sadness when her star moment was being gun-fodder to an insane police deputy. Come on writers, you can’t tell me the only way to make Penelope interesting was to “stuff her in a refrigerator.”
Then Nick Brendon popped in as a FBI computer hacker. I hate to say it but this is one of the more believable of his post-Buffy roles. I blame his 7 year genius as Xander Harris and the lack of Brendon getting a fair turn in that TV/movie action(damn you again Fox) that his Buffy counterparts are enjoying.
Seeing that the only pluses about the episode “Penelope” were that Kirsten Vangsness got a bloody center stage and that Nick Brendon played a geek again, I’ve come to realize this: A Patinkin-less CRIMINAL MINDS is a sad sight.
NUMB3RS “Graphic”
I’ve burned friends’ ears with this rant for years. Now it’s your turn to be set ablaze. The minute the NUMB3RS crew decided that we had to be given a lesson on how the lens of a camera works was the second NUMB3RS became a worthless idiot show in my book. It’s the time of Big Brother via the public and the government. How the hell can anyone who claims mathematics mastery have to explain to the fucking FBI, of all organizations, how the angles of camera positions work in a real world setting? It baffled me then. It still baffles me now. When story can’t hide idiot ideas with some kind of skill it irks me.
I solved the equation by not wasting another 44 minutes on NUMB3RS.
Then Geek Avatar Wil Wheaton boasted he was to appear on the episode “Graphic.” I buckled to the Internet Deity’s might and forced the DVR to obey.
“Graphic” was NUMB3RS foray into the world of comic book madness. Wheaton played Miles Sklar, a comic book artist that’s all about collecting things and making money. Christopher Lloyd dropped Marty off and arrived in time to play the old comic book artist genius Ross Moore, a genial man, with anything that would make him the least bit more interesting smoothed away leaving only a marble pillar in its place, slowly dying in relative poverty despite having inspired a generation of new artists. Sklar was set to sell a Moore book for a ridiculous amount of money. The Seth Marlowe character is basically the creator/fan with a noble cause and good intentions. We all know where good intentions lead.
Now on to what made “Graphic” worth an hour of the couch hugging your butt. Peter MacNicol chewing up screen time and reveling in nostalgic exposition. Joe Morton sneaking around the plot’s outside being an intrusive Vanity Fair journalist. Wil Wheaton playing an ambitious skeevy bastard. The subtext in true life comic industry rivalries that were superficially glanced upon.
And that’s it.
NUMB3Rs is still pretty stupid and uninspiring. Only the power of The Wheaton compelled me to take the time out of my day. TV Suits make a note of this and possibly throw him a series or something.
Psst. Wheaton. I expect a 10% cut of all your future earnings after you blow-up the small screen.
An Unofficial Internet Agent to the Stars Groonk’s gotta eat.
